How to copy a class instance in python?

Question

I would like to make a copy of a class instance in python. I tried copy.deepcopy but I get the error message:

RuntimeError: Only Variables cr

Answer 1

Yes you can make a copy of class instance using deepcopy:

from copy import deepcopy

c = C(4,5,'r'=2)
d = deepcopy(c)

This creates the copy of class instance 'c' in 'd' .

Answer 2

One way to do that is by implementing __copy__ in the C Class like so:

class A:
    def __init__(self):
        self.var1 = 1
        self.var2 = 2
        self.var3 = 3

class C(A):
    def __init__(self, a=None, b=None, **kwargs):
        super().__init__()
        self.a = a
        self.b = b
        for x, v in kwargs.items():
            setattr(self, x, v)

    def __copy__(self):
        self.normalizeArgs()
        return C(self.a, self.b, kwargs=self.kwargs)

    # THIS IS AN ADDITIONAL GATE-KEEPING METHOD TO ENSURE 
    # THAT EVEN WHEN PROPERTIES ARE DELETED, CLONED OBJECTS
    # STILL GETS DEFAULT VALUES (NONE, IN THIS CASE)
    def normalizeArgs(self):
        if not hasattr(self, "a"):
            self.a      = None
        if not hasattr(self, "b"):
            self.b      = None
        if not hasattr(self, "kwargs"):
            self.kwargs = {}

cMain   = C(a=4, b=5, kwargs={'r':2})

del cMain.b
cClone  = cMain.__copy__()

cMain.a = 11

del  cClone.b
cClone2 = cClone.__copy__()

print(vars(cMain))
print(vars(cClone))
print(vars(cClone2))

Answer 3

I have mostly figured it out. The only problem which I cannot overcome is knowing an acceptable set of initialization arguments (arguments for __init__) for all classes. So I have to make the following two assumtions:

1) I have a set of default arguments for class C which I call argsC. 2) All objects in C can be initialized with empty arguments.

In which case I can First: Initialize a new instance of the class C from it's instance which I want to copy c:

c_copy = c.__class__(**argsC)

Second: Go through all the attributes of c and set the attributes c_copy to be a copy of the attributes of c

for att in c.__dict__:
    setattr(c_copy, att, object_copy(getattr(c,att)))

where object_copy is a recursive application of the function we are building.

Last: Delete all attributes in c_copy but not in c:

for att in c_copy.__dict__:
    if not hasattr(c, att):
        delattr(c_copy, att)

Putting this all together we have:

import copy

def object_copy(instance, init_args=None):
    if init_args:
        new_obj = instance.__class__(**init_args)
    else:
        new_obj = instance.__class__()
    if hasattr(instance, '__dict__'):
        for k in instance.__dict__ :
            try:
                attr_copy = copy.deepcopy(getattr(instance, k))
            except Exception as e:
                attr_copy = object_copy(getattr(instance, k))
            setattr(new_obj, k, attr_copy)

        new_attrs = list(new_obj.__dict__.keys())
        for k in new_attrs:
            if not hasattr(instance, k):
                delattr(new_obj, k)
        return new_obj
    else:
        return instance

So putting it all together we have:

argsC = {'a':1, 'b':1}
c = C(4,5,r=[[1],2,3])
c.a = 11
del c.b
c_copy = object_copy(c, argsC)
c.__dict__

{'a': 11, 'r': [[1], 2, 3]}

c_copy.__dict__

{'a': 11, 'r': [[1], 2, 3]}

c.__dict__

{'a': 11, 'r': [[1, 33], 2, 3]}

c_copy.__dict__

{'a': 11, 'r': [[1], 2, 3]}

Which is the desired outcome. It uses deepcopy if it can, but for the cases where it would raise an exception, it can do without.